


Not Another Sterek Romance (It Is Absolutely Another Sterek Romance)

by betp



Series: Tutor!Verse [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, jock!Derek, nerd!stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betp/pseuds/betp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> In which Derek is the worst at history and Stiles wears glasses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Another Sterek Romance (It Is Absolutely Another Sterek Romance)

Derek sighs as he slouches next to the teacher's desk. She's sitting there, looking quite comfortable, with his test face-down in front of her. She did that to protect his privacy while the rest of the class shuffles out the door, but the fact that you can see the red pen marks through the paper, and the fact that he is just fucking standing there looking dejected as hell, probably give him away. "Good luck, Der," says his friend Boyd. Derek nods at his gesture of—what? Solidarity, perhaps?

"Yeah, good luck, babycakes," says his ex, Kate, who can _seriously_ suck his dick, but not literally, because he's not letting her get near his genitals ever again. He flips her off.

"Mr. Hale," admonishes the teacher, and Derek tries to look contrite.

Soon, everyone is gone except for the lanky kid from second string lacrosse, the kid who spends most of class highlighting the entire textbook. He comes up to the desk looking almost as disconsolate as Derek, but not quite. He misses the mark because his eyes are golden and bright, like stars—or, oh jeez, that's cheesy, isn't it. Derek wrenches his gaze away to glare with purpose at his teacher.

She ignores the both of them for a full minute, leaving them standing there, frowning and avoiding each other's eye contact (or maybe that's just Derek), before she finally addresses them. "So," she says, smiling sweetly.

"So," says the kid. His eyebrows and the movement of his shoulders say it, too. This guy's an alien.

"Mr. Stilinski here is pulling a straight A average in my class," the teacher tells Derek. The guy shuffles his feet. "He seems to know his stuff, and you're barely getting Ds on tests. So I'm going to set you two up."

Derek gawks at her, trying not to blush—like that's a thing he can prevent through sheer force of will.

She doesn't notice. "You can set up your own schedule, do it wherever you want, however often you want, etcetera. It's all up to you. I'm sure Mr. Stilinski knows how to get you back up."

Derek and the Stilinski guy are silent for a long moment, staring at her. Finally, Stilinski clears his throat. "I'm sorry, are we talking about _tutoring_ , or…?"

Derek snorts. They look at each other.

"Yes. You will be tutoring him until midterms," says the teacher, brow furrowed.

"Okay," Stilinski says. "Okay, _that_ we can handle." She hands Derek's probably mortifying test to Stilinski and shoos them out of her classroom.

"I don't think she really gets how colloquialisms work," Stilinski says to Derek as they awkwardly exchange numbers in the empty hallway. "Does she understand life?"

"She's tearing me apart, Lisa," Derek mumbles, and Stilinski laughs.

They stand there blinking at each other for a second, and then Stilinski goes, "A-anyway," and the same time as Derek clears his throat and goes, "Um," and Stilinski chuckles, embarrassed. "Uh, I'm Stiles," Stilinski—Stiles—says, pointing at Derek's phone. Derek changes the name in the contact list. "And you should, um. Pick a time. And place. Or whatever."

::

"So you're on the baseball team, huh," Stiles says in the library the next day.

He's tapping his pencil repeatedly on his notebook. Chin resting in his other hand, knees bouncing. He's this veritable ball of excess energy, and Derek is static. It makes him feel like he should be moving, with electric-bright eyes, as well. But Derek is incapable of that. He nods, feeling his head poke forward in a vaguely turtle-esque manner.

"I was never good at baseball," Stiles tells him. "Any non-contact sport—or, no, I guess I should say any sport without any cardio, I can't focus on it. Because I couldn't do football either. Too much stopping the clock and lying around on top of each other. Couldn't do it."

"Don't think I've ever heard football described that way," Derek mumbles, smirking.

"Oh, uh," Stiles blushes. Squirms, which Derek only notices because he moves in a distinctly different way than he was a second ago. "Yeah, sorry."

There is no strictly casual way of saying, "Change nothing, you are breaking up the monotony the way no one else does," so Derek just shrugs one shoulder. Stiles is embarrassed, now. "Maybe we should, um. Do studying now."

::

The next three weeks are crammed with more studying than Derek thinks he's done in his entire first two years of high school. Stiles proclaims Derek a tactile learner ("Like me! Twinsville, population: us!"), and when Derek goes to his house to study the next day, Stiles is laden with a stack of printer paper containing all of his research. Using Stiles' newfound tips and knowledge, and Stiles' patented flashcard technique, history stops being a word dump of shit Derek wouldn't have cared about when it was current, and starts being a subject he can easily wrap his mind around.

He doesn't want to say it's his favourite subject, because it's history. But then again, there is Stiles.

Stiles is sixteen. Taking a junior-level history class. He reports that he weighs 147, but Derek has seen his forearms, his shoulders, and would like proof. (Not something he has said out loud.) Stiles asks a lot of questions about baseball, and at the end of the second week, exclaims that he likes baseball, now, and has no one to blame but Derek. Stiles recommends entire lists of movies, all of which Derek gets on Netflix and crams into his schedule after Stiles leaves. He does this to return the favour, because Stiles reads all the books Derek tells him he should—including the Clique series, something Laura loves and Derek knew Stiles would hate. Stiles read the whole thing in two days anyway, and came to Derek's house to yell at him about it. Derek stood there in shorts with a bottle of Yoohoo and grinned so hard his cheeks hurt.

Stiles is perpetually fidgeting with his pens and pencils, spinning them in his long, dexterous fingers, tapping them, lining them up exactly parallel with the edge of his paper, and most sinful of all, chewing on them, putting the ends between his lips and just—

Studying with Stiles is equally revolutionary and detrimental, because on the one hand, Stiles makes him like history, Stiles makes history easy and fun, and on the other hand, Stiles is Stiles, tantalising and distracting, warm and real next to Derek, tangible in a way nothing else really is, for him. He makes history jokes, which—Derek gets them. Derek gets Stiles' history puns. Stiles makes history puns. "I'm not a nerd, I'm a _geek_ ," Stiles says primly. "There is a _difference_."

On the plus side, Derek hasn't enjoyed himself this much in years. On the downside, all of his friends are under the impression Stiles is a hapless nerd with whom Derek has been imprisoned. Everyone but Boyd mocks Derek for it if he mentions he has to go and study with Stiles—which, "has to" is hardly the appropriate phrase—and Stiles seems to understand this about their relationship. Raises his eyebrows in greeting in the hallway, but otherwise ignores him until they're at one of their houses, eating fries and kicking each other under the table. Something that makes Derek uneasy at school, but he's sort of socially obligated to be friends with the baseball team in its entirety, and Stiles has complained about half the baseball team by name at least once, so Derek figures he just doesn't want to deal with Derek's friends. He doesn't seem to resent Derek any for it, since he obviously has no qualms about dozing off with his head on Derek's shoulder in the evenings, so Derek doesn't worry about it too much.

It fits into a schedule for Derek, something he gets used to way too easily. And then Derek walks into class one day, and the desks are arranged differently. "MIDTERMS" is written on the board. Derek swears.

::

Derek swoops through the exam like there isn't a challenge.

Because there isn't.

Derek can hear Stiles' voice in his head answering every question, can think of the specific moment he learned each answer. He finishes quickly, and then looks around sheepishly. Boyd doesn't look concerned, but Boyd never looks concerned. Kate looks like she can see her death before her eyes, and Derek smirks. Stiles is back a row and to Derek's left, already finished, and doodling on the back of his test. Lashes like smears down from his eyes, reddened lips pursed thoughtfully as he carefully pencils in a handlebar moustache onto the robot he's drawn.

Derek turns away, sighs heavily.

::

Derek gets an A.

The teacher is astounded.

Hands his test to him with a big-ass grin on her face. "Good thing I assigned you and Mr. Stilinski together, huh?"

Stiles stands next to him, looking over his shoulder at the test with this proud, nigh-emotional expression on his face. Derek wants to kiss him, deep on the mouth. Maybe throw him onto the teacher's desk and ravish him. But Derek is nothing if not well-behaved.

The teacher shoos them away again, and they're in the empty hallway, staring at each other. Just like old times. Jesus, that was only three weeks ago.

"So, um, you got an A," Stiles says, smiling ruefully.

He doesn't look happy. Why doesn't he look happy. "Yeah," Derek says. "Thanks to you."

"Well, congrats." Stiles adjusts the books in his hands, digs the toe of his sneaker into the linoleum. "Now your friends won't tease you anymore. 'Cause you won't have to associate with me." He laughs, and it sounds forced. Derek does not, because it wasn't funny. Stiles clears his throat. "Anyway, uh. See ya." He turns and trudges down the hallway, and Derek watches the slope of his shoulders, perplexed.

Then it sinks in: they aren't going to be studying in Stiles' dining room anymore. There is no longer any reason for them to spend time together. Derek won't get to stare dumbly while Stiles puts the eraser to his pencil between his lips. He won't get to continue the mental scrapbook he has of all of Stiles' plaid shirts. He won't get to watch Stiles blush uncomfortably when he adjusts his clunky, hipstery glasses. More importantly, he won't get to listen to Stiles talk at length about movies and history and books and his dad's job and food and music and—this thought is the one that has Derek tripping over his own feet in his scramble to catch up with Stiles in the hallway. "Stiles," he says, and Stiles doesn't stop at first, so Derek all but tackles him. Grabs his biceps and pins him against the lockers with a clang. All his books hit the floor.

"What the fuck," Stiles splutters. "Derek, no! You've never been a nerd-bullying jock before, why start now? Quick, renounce your life of crime, before it's too late!"

"Stiles, shut up," Derek says. "You're not a nerd anyway. You're a geek."

Stiles blushes, giggles. Covers his mouth and looks startled, like he isn't sure how that noise came out of him.

"Stiles, you should date me," Derek says desperately. "Go on a date with me. Multiple dates. Be my girlfriend. I mean, shit, boyfriend. Or whatever."

Stiles stares at him, blinking. Drops his hand slowly. Mouth hanging open.

"Not that you have to." Derek winces. "I mean, you don't have to. It's just—I'd like it—I mean, obviously. Or I wouldn't be asking. But that's all, it's—um, it's an offer. Not that I'm a prize or something. Oh, jeez."

Derek did not ask Kate out. He got drunk with the team at a party, and she literally frenched him and then informed him they were going out. It was like the third grade, only much sexier and blurrier. It was his freshman year, and she strung him along for two years until she dumped him for his best friend.

This is straight-up preteen bullshit that Derek never had the chance to teach himself how to do.

Stiles squirms, tries to get away from where Derek is holding him against the lockers.

"No, just—would you just—think about it? At least? I mean, I enjoy myself with you. I thought you were enjoying—I mean, I thought we had fun together? And I think you're attractive? Oh, my god."

Stiles huffs, irritated. "Derek, damn it, would you let me up so I can kiss you, already?"

Derek yanks his hands back like Stiles shocked him—which—which he kind of did. Stiles gives him a _nice job, loser_ look, brushes mostly imaginary wrinkles out of the sleeves of his jacket. Then he steps forward and kisses Derek. Hands cupping his jaw, hips insinuating themselves against Derek's, and Derek feels his knees go a little weak. Stiles groans, "Jesus christ, finally," and turns them, pins Derek against the lockers.

::

"You're gorgeous," Stiles tells Derek, braces glinting. "We should definitely be having sex right now."

"Your dad is downstairs," Derek replies, blushing furiously, "and we are studying."

"Dude, look into my eyes and find even a single trace of evidence that I give a shit about either of those things, I double-dog _dare_ you."

Derek does. There isn't any. "Wow, you're right," Derek says. "You don't care at all."

Stiles grins. "See? Not even a little."

"I had no idea."

"It's okay. You were just mistaken. If you stay quiet, Dad won't suspect a thing."

"I won't be the one who has a problem staying quiet, Stiles."

"Oh, wow. You're so fuckin' sure, aren't you? So gag me with something," Stiles says, flippant. "I saw this thing in a porno the other night that I want to do with you. And I would like to do it right now."

Derek squirms. Stiles is holding his textbook and notebook on his kneecaps, at the ready to drop them onto the floor the second Derek says the word. He's reedy, skinny, and his mouth is never shut, and his fingers seem too long for his hands, and he can't go an hour without making some kind of weird pop-culture reference, and Derek's never been so attracted to anyone in his life. "We should shut the door," he says eventually, and Stiles flings his books onto the floor with a grin.  

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a brief nerd!Stiles crackfic and it turned into their entire lives unfolding before my dumb eyes. I wish I could say I'm sorry, but I can't type. I hope you can hear me screaming it.


End file.
